ADVENTURES............PART 3.

Travelling Home.
Monday morning saw us setting off for our journey home.  We'd already decided to use back roads to complete our time without caravan in tow.  Our trusty thermos was filled with hot water, sarnies made & off we went.
First stop was beside the Cotter River on the outskirts of Canberra, where we had morning tea.

Cotter River downstream of the dam.

Onto some very dusty road through the Brindabella Ranges.

Another creek crossing.

We drove down through Tumut (shown in Part 1 post), had our lunch, then travelled up through Batlow, Tumbarumba & down towards Jingellic on the Murray River.
Not far outside the town of Tumbarumba, we pulled into a side road for me to take these photos.......

but, another car pulled alongside & asked what we were doing.  Ooh, looked like an officer of the law.  Right, we'd pulled up at the gates to a Correctional Facility & were told we could take better photos a little further along the road.  Isn't this (above) the most amazing landscape & what lovely views for the aforementioned inmates.
Nearing the border between N.S.W. & Victoria we passed over this bridge on the Murray River.

Travelling & taking photos isn't always easy & although I try hard, I sometimes take them from the windscreen & have to edit out the bug splats, which I've not done on the pic below, just to show what it does look like at times.

Soon we were passing the backwaters of Lake Hume, an enormous water storage on the Murray River outside Albury, where we were booked to stay the night.

Back water of dam.

Dam wall.

Behind the large gum is another tree?  No, it is a small tree smothered in a creeper.  Quite amazing.

Next morning, for the last day, it began on freeway to Wangaratta, where we turned off to again come via back roads.  We stopped in Whitfield, a small village, to have our morning cuppa & was actually able to have a latte made on "proper" lactose free milk (not soy), as some will try to give you.

The shelter at the picnic area where we had our cup of coffee.

  Travelling further, we finally reached Mansfield where we bought some sandwiches, as it was the last town we would go through for a while and ate them at a picnic area beside a river, one of many which run into Lake Eildon.  The countryside in the area is beautiful at this time of year.

I walked back along the road a bit & took this with my smallest lens to capture the bridge where we ate lunch & the views we enjoyed.

A change lens, & I could zoom in on this shed.

The lushness of Spring, before it browns off,  if we have a very hot  dry summer.

This windmill was clanking away merrily in the breeze.

Tummies full, we headed off on the last leg towards our area of West Gippsland.

A sign you don't see very often here in Oz.
Most are for kangaroos, wombats, koalas & emus.

Stopped by this river for a few minutes.

Notice the size of our car  compared to the trees.

How far we climbed into the ranges, though this wasn't the highest on the entire trip.

Our next photo stop (the last), was at Woods Point, a small town which once had the second richest gold mine in Victoria & in its heyday boasted 36 pubs, 3 banks, Hospital, a school with 300 pupils, a cordial factory, 2 breweries, 2 libraries, 3 churches, its own Mayor & town crier.  It even had 5 suburbs, but not much left now.  We must take time to come back & explore more here.
This photo (below) is supposed to be the most photographed petrol station in Australia.  Much of this information was in a brochure we actually found in the Morris yesterday, whilst looking for something else.  It prompted me to get this Part 3 done!!!!

OK, we finally made it home after one final stop at Noojee for afternoon tea.
Sorry this has been so photo heavy (there were lots more), and hope I haven't bored you to tears, but I needed to get it done.  We've had a few day trips over the last week and I want to post about those before the Scavenger Hunt & Finishing Stitches which I participate in with 2 friends at the end of the month.
Uhm!!! No, I'm not done yet as I have a couple of artistic shots or as I'm not in the least artistic, should I say "funky" shots.  Sometimes I like pointing the camera in weird ways, whether it be upwards or on hands & knees, trying out strange angles or odd subjects & securing something a little different.  Well, just being me in other words.

Take care all and huggles from Susan.